1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for managing software licenses, as well as to a storage medium storing a program for managing software licenses, and more particularly to a computer-applied technique capable of flexibly correcting, on an organization-wide scale, the difference between the number of purchased software licenses and the number of software licenses actually used within each section of the organization.
2. Description of the Related Art
There exists a system which manages software licenses in a single organization (an enterprise, a foundation, or a group, etc.) on the basis of the number of purchased software licenses and the state of usage of software licenses, whereby the organization can avoid holding an excess or insufficient number of software licenses. However, there does not exist a system capable of flexibly coping with daily organizational changes, a system capable of taking into consideration cost sharing by different sections (sections, divisions, or departments, etc.) of the organization, or a system having a function for providing management not only for a single company but also for other companies within the same group.
In general, software licenses are managed with each section of an organization being considered as a unit. Therefore, in order to strictly manage software licenses, while reflecting variations in the number of users attributable to organizational changes, a person within each section in charge of purchasing software must manage the number of purchased software licenses and the number of software licenses actually used within the section, which change according to organizational changes. However, since software licenses are intangible, strict monitoring of such changes requires a huge volume of work, and therefore is almost impossible in actuality. As a result, illegal copying may inadvertently be performed frequently, and in some cases an excess number of software licenses may be purchased.
Specifically, the following problems have arisen. In the following illustrative scenario, it is assumed that a certain section purchased twenty licenses of a piece of software A, and after receipt of a license certificate from a vendor, the software was installed in twenty personal computers. Subsequently, ten persons were moved to another section together with their personal computers, i.e., ten of the twenty personal computers were moved to another section due to an organizational change.
According to our study, under such circumstances, the following two methods are considered as a method for managing software licenses.
In the first method, the software is uninstalled from the personal computers of the ten moved persons, and software licenses are purchased for the section to which the persons have moved, in order to enable installation of the software. However, this method has the drawback that ten software licenses, which are not used any more in the original section, become useless.
In the second method, the ten moved persons are allowed to use the software in the section to which they have moved. However, this method has the drawback that since the license certificate is a sheet of paper, there arise difficulties in proving that the ten moved person have software licenses and difficulties in managing the number of software licenses in the section from which the persons have moved.
Further, according to our study, each section of an organization individually purchases software licenses within a budget allotted thereto. Therefore, unneeded purchases and illegal copying may be performed in each section, and it may be difficult to obtain a discount in the negotiated unit price, as discounts are commonly offered only when a large number of software licenses are purchased.